Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the westward expansion to paint the scenes. He was not the first artist to record the sites, but he was the foremost painter of them for the remainder of the 19th century.

Bierstadt was born in Prussia, but his family moved to the United States when he was one year old. He returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. He became part of the second generation of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along the Hudson River. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. Bierstadt was an important interpreter of the western landscape, and he is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.

Early life and education

Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Rhine Province, Prussia, on January 7, 1830. He was the son of Christina M. (Tillmans) and Henry Bierstadt, a cooper. His older brothers were prominent stereo view photographers Edward Bierstadt and Charles Bierstadt. Albert was just a year old when his family emigrated to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1831. He made clever crayon sketches in his youth and developed a taste for art.

In 1851, Bierstadt began to paint in oils.

Career

thumb|[[Among the Sierra Nevada, California, 1868, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.]]

thumb|Rocky Mountain Landscape, 1870, [[White House, Washington, D.C.]]

In 1858, Bierstadt exhibited a large painting of a Swiss landscape at the National Academy of Design, which gained him positive critical reception and honorary membership of the Academy. He returned to a studio he had taken at the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York with sketches for numerous paintings he then finished. In 1860, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Design; he received medals in Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, and Germany.

In 1863, Bierstadt traveled west again, this time with the author Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whose wife he later married. The pair spent seven weeks in the Yosemite Valley. Throughout the 1860s, Bierstadt used studies from this trip as the source for large-scale exhibition paintings and he continued to visit the American West throughout his career. The immense canvases he produced after his trips with Lander and Ludlow established him as the preeminent painter of the western American landscape. That painting was based on a stereoscopic photograph taken by his brother Edward Bierstadt, who operated a photography studio at Langley's Tavern in Virginia. The painting received a positive review when it was exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Association at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 1861. Curator Eleanor Jones Harvey observed that the painting, created from photographs, "is quintessentially that of a voyeur, privy to the stories and unblemished by the violence and brutality of first-hand combat experience." the equivalent of almost $400,000 in 2020.

In 1867, Bierstadt returned to Europe, arriving in London where he exhibited two landscape paintings in a private reception with Queen Victoria. He then travelled through Europe for the next two years, painting new works while also cultivating social and business contacts to sustain the market for his art on the continent. His exhibition pieces both impressed European audiences and furthered the idea of the American West as a land of promise during a period when European emigration to the U.S. was increasing. Bierstadt's choice of grandiose subjects was matched by his entrepreneurial flair. His exhibitions of individual works were accompanied by promotion, ticket sales, and, in the words of one critic, a "vast machinery of advertisement and puffery."

thumb|Rosalie Bierstadt, unknown date|264x264px

Despite his popular success, Bierstadt was criticized by some contemporaries for the romanticism evident in his choice of subjects and for his use of light, which they found excessive. Some critics objected to Bierstadt's paintings of Native Americans, believing that including Indigenous Americans "marred" the "impression of solitary grandeur." Yet by the time of his death on February 18, 1902, the taste for epic landscape painting had long since subsided. Bierstadt was buried at the Rural Cemetery in New Bedford, Massachusetts,

On the other hand, his work has also been criticized as largely an imaginary depiction of nature, and even "soulless" in its execution.

Existing work

  • 1853 – Majesty of the Mountains
  • 1855 – The Old Mill
  • 1855 – The Portico of Octavia
  • 1855 – Westphalia
  • 1858 – Lake Lucerne, c. 1853, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
  • 1859 – The Wolf River, Kansas, c. 1859, oil on canvas, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan
  • 1861 – Echo Lake, Franconia Mountains, NH, Smith College Museum of Art, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts
  • 1863 – The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York
  • 1864 – Cho-looke, the Yosemite Fall, oil on canvas, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, California
  • 1864 – Valley of the Yosemite, oil on paper, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
  • 1865 – Looking Down Yosemite Valley, Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama
  • 1866 – Yosemite Valley, Oil on canvas on panel-back stretcher, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
  • 1866 – On the Hudson River Near Irvington, 1866–70, oil on paper, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts
  • 1866 – A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie, oil on canvas, Brooklyn Museum, New York City, New York
  • 1868 – Connecticut River Valley, Claremont, New Hampshire, 1868, oil on canvas, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts
  • 1868 – In the Sierras, Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • 1868 – Among the Sierra Nevada, California, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
  • 1869 – Glen Ellis Falls, oil on canvas, Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, New Jersey
  • 1870 – Sierra Nevada Morning, oil on canvas, Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma
  • 1870 – Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast, oil on canvas, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington
  • 1870 – Laramie Peak, oil on canvas, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, New York
  • 1871 – Domes of Yosemite, c. 1871, St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, St. Johnsbury, Vermont
  • 1874 – Giant Redwood Trees of California, c. 1874, oil on canvas, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts
  • 1875 – Mount Adams, Washington, 1875, oil on canvas, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey
  • 1876 – Mount Corcoran, c. 1876–77, oil on canvas, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
  • 1888 – The Last of the Buffalo, oil on canvas, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
  • 1889 – Alaskan Coast Range, c. 1889, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
  • 1891 – The Last of the Buffalo, c. 1891, vintage photogravure, Valley Fine Art Gallery, Aspen, Colorado
  • 1895 – The Morteratsch Glacier Upper Engadine Valley – Pontresina

Selected paintings

<gallery widths="220px" heights="220px">

File:Albert Bierstadt - Roman Fish Market. Arch of Octavius - Google Art Project.jpg|Roman Fish Market, Arch of Octavius, 1858, De Young Museum, San Francisco, California

File:Gosnold at Cuttyhunk.jpg|Gosnold at Cuttyhunk, c. 1858, New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Massachusetts

File:Albert Bierstadt - The Marina Piccola, Capri.jpg|The Marina Piccola, Capri, 1859, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

File:Albert Bierstadt - Indians Spear Fishing - Google Art Project.jpg|Indians Spear Fishing, 1862, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

File:Albert Bierstadt - Guerrilla Warfare.jpg|Guerilla Warfare, Civil War, 1862, Century Association, New York City

File:Albert Bierstadt - Sunlight and Shadow - Google Art Project.jpg|Sunlight and Shadow, 1862, De Young Museum, San Francisco, California

File:Bierstadt Albert Oregon Trail.jpg|Oregon Trail (Campfire), 1863

File:Albert Bierstadt - The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak.jpg|The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, 1863, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

File:Albert Bierstadt - Valley of the Yosemite - Google Art Project.jpg|Valley of the Yosemite, 1864, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts

File:Looking Down Yosemite-Valley.jpg|Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California, 1865, Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama

File:Bierstadt Albert Staubbach Falls Near Lauterbrunnen Switzerland.jpg|Staubbach Falls, Near Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, 1865

File:Albert Bierstadt - A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie - Google Art Project.jpg|A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie, 1866, Brooklyn Museum, New York City

File:Bierstadt Albert - Yosemite Valley.jpg|Yosemite Valley, Yosemite Park, c. 1868, Oakland Museum, California

File:Albert Bierstadt 001.jpg|Lake Tahoe, 1868, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts

File:HRSOA AlbertBierstadt-Storm in the Mountains.jpg|Storm in the Mountains, c. 1870, Museum of Fine Art, Boston, Massachusetts

File:Sierra Nevada Albert Bierstadt circa 1871.jpeg|Sierra Nevada, c. 1871–1873, Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

<!-- File:AlbertBierstadt-San Francisco Bay.jpg|San Francisco Bay (1871–1873), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. -->

File:Albert_Bierstadt_-_Giant_Redwood_Trees_of_California_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg|Giant Redwood Trees of California, 1874, Berkshire Museum, Massachusetts

File:Albert Bierstadt - California Spring - Google Art Project.jpg|California Spring, 1875, De Young Museum, San Francisco, California

File:1875, Bierstadt, Albert, Mount Adams, Washington.jpg|Mount Adams, Washington, 1875, Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey

File:Sunrise on the Matterhorn MET DT218107.jpg|Sunrise on the Matterhorn, after 1875, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

File:Albert Bierstadt, Estes Park and Longs Peak, circa 1876.jpg|Estes Park, Long's Peak, c 1876-1877, Denver Art Museum, Colorado (on loan from the Denver Public Library)

File:Albert Bierstadt - Mount Corcoran.jpg|Mount Corcoran, c. 1876–1877, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

File:Emerald Sea - Albert Bierstadt.jpg|Emerald Sea (or The Shore of the Turquoise Sea), 1878, Manoogian Collection, Detroit, Michigan

File:Albert Bierstadt - Light in the Forest.jpg|Light in the Forest, unknown date

</gallery>

Legacy and honors

thumb|[[Bierstadt Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park]]

  • Because of Bierstadt's interest in mountain landscapes, Mount Bierstadt and Bierstadt Lake in Colorado are named in his honor. Bierstadt was probably the first European to visit the summit of Mount Blue Sky in 1863, 1.5 miles from Mount Bierstadt. Bierstadt named it Mount Rosa, a reference to both Monte Rosa above Zermatt and, Rosalie Ludlow, his future wife, but the name was changed from Rosalie to Evans in 1895 in honor of Colorado governor John Evans, and again in 2023 to Blue Sky.
  • In 1998, the United States Postal Service issued a set of 20 commemorative stamps entitled "Four Centuries of American Art", one of which featured Albert Bierstadt's The Last of the Buffalo. In 2008, the USPS issued a commemorative stamp in its "American Treasures" series featuring Bierstadt's 1864 painting Valley of the Yosemite.
  • William Bliss Baker, another landscape artist, studied under Bierstadt.
  • The 2018 novel, The Overstory, by Richard Powers features Bierstadt’s painting “Cathedral Forest” as the cover art, further designed by Evan Gaffney. The book won the 2018 AIGA 50 Covers award. The author also won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the book.

References

Further reading

  • Anderson, Nancy K. et al. Albert Bierstadt, Art & Enterprise, New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1990.
  • Barringer, Tim and Wilton, Andrew. American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States 1820–1880, Princeton University Press, 2002. .
  • Hendricks, Gordon. Albert Bierstadt, Painter of the American West, New York: Harrison House/Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1988.
  • Miller, Angela. "Albert Bierstadt, Landscape Aesthetics, and the Meanings of the West in the Civil War Era". Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 27, no. 1 (Terrain of Freedom: American Art and the Civil War) (2001): 40–59 and 101–102. . .
  • Albert Bierstadt (albertbierstadt.org)
  • Albert Bierstadt Paintings at fineartamerica.com
  • White Mountain paintings by Albert Bierstadt
  • A finding aid to the Albert Bierstadt letter collection, 1880–1893 in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
  • "Against His Grain: Albert Bierstadt's 'Clouds Over the Prairie MONA Moment, Museum of Nebraska Art
  • Gallery of Bierstadt's Paintings
  • The Winterthur Library—Overview of an archival collection on Albert Bierstadt.
  • Albert Bierstadt Paintings Gallery—345 images online
  • Albert Bierstadt's Biography at The R.W. Norton Art Gallery
  • Giant Redwood Trees' will fall at Berkshire Museum despite interpretive value", The Berkshire Eagle, June 30, 2018
  • Albert Bierstadt, WikiArt